I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mechanism for transporting a length of wire from one position to another, and more particularly to an improved automatic wire transfer mechanism that is adapted to be used with and move a section of wire from a cutting and stripping machine to a wire crimping press, and thereby form a complete wire lead making unit.
II. Description of the Prior Art
In many of the typical apparatus that include systems for cutting, stripping and/or crimping wire leads, (electrical conductors), there is also included along with the wire transferring mechanism some sort of apparatus or mechanism for straightening a length of wire. A wire straightening apparatus is usually required because when wire leads are processed, and then transported from one location to another by a wire transfer mechanism there is a tendency to cause bending of the wire. When dealing with electrical wire conductors, it is rather obvious that bending of the wire leads during processing is highly undesirable. However, including a wire straightening apparatus in a system for processing electrical wire leads is also undesirable. This type of equipment generally decreases the efficiency of the overall system while increasing the overall cost thereof. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,707,756 there is illustrated a wire positioner for a terminal attaching machine which is an example of the kind of attempts illustrated by the prior art to avoid the use of a wire straightening mechanism.